


Can We Keep Him?

by TheGreatGame



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Adopting Cats, Cats, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-09 19:18:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17412689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGreatGame/pseuds/TheGreatGame
Summary: The Doctor encounters an adorable stowaway in Jamie's sporran.





	Can We Keep Him?

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a picture of a kitten in a sporran, and was originally uploaded on Tumblr a LONG time ago.

“Well, I hope you all had fun at the market,” the Doctor said as he set the TARDIS controls for another flight. 

Zoe was still looking at her new vials of chemicals with great interest. The Doctor took a step away when he saw the “mad scientist” look on her face. “Thank you, Doctor. I’ll be in the laboratory if you need me.”

“Oh, don’t drop a single one of those vials!” the Doctor called to her as she left. “They’re harmless, but they make a dreadful-”

The sound of a rather loud BOOM from the hallway interrupted his next words.

“… mess.” 

“I’m fine!” Zoe shouted.

The Doctor sighed. “You had better clean that up!”

He turned and looked over Jamie, who had not moved a great distance from the door. Each step the Scot took was slow and careful, as if he was balancing a dozen eggs on his head.

“Jamie, what are you doing?”

Jamie jolted at the Doctor’s words. He seemed more paranoid than the stoners on New Earth 5.

“Nothing, Doctor. Just walking. Why?”

“Well, could you walk a little faster? I want to show you something I purchased at the market. We’re going to have tons of fun with it.”

Jamie smiled and took a much larger step. Both the Time Lord and the human jumped when a small “ _mew_ ” came out of nowhere.

“Jamie,” the Doctor said cautiously, “did you just meow?”

“No.” Another “ _mew!_ ” changed his mind. “Aye!” 

“I’m getting to the bottom of this,” the Doctor muttered, walking over to Jamie. “The noises seem to be coming from you.”

“Aye, I told ye I was meowing.”

“ _Mow!_ ”

“That was me.”

The Doctor crouched down and put his ear next to where the sounds were coming from. Jamie was a little startled by this, considering that it was near his crotch. The Doctor briefly wondered what kind of fur Jamie's sporran was lined with before realizing that was ridiculous. He opened it and a second later, a fuzzy brown head popped out of the pouch. The kitten blinked in the bright light of the console room.

“ _Mew!_ ”

“Jamie?”

Jamie sighed and picked the kitten up. The kitten seemed to be comprised mostly of fluff, and he had an adorable black spot over one eye. He relaxed in the Scot’s grasp, as if he was being held by his own mother.

“I couldnae just leave him there, Doctor! He’s only a bairn, and his mother died, and he was being hurt by his own brothers. Look!”

Jamie pointed to the kitten’s right ear, which had a little notch taken out of it. The Doctor also noticed the nasty scratch on the kitten's nose.

“When I walked by his cage, he looked right at me.” Jamie ran a finger across the kitten’s head and smiled when he purred. “I couldnae just leave him,” Jamie lovingly repeated.

“Oh,” said the Doctor, unsure of what to do. Anyway, he _was_ cute.

A few seconds passed before Jamie asked the fateful question.

“So, can we keep him?”

“No!”

“But Doctor!”

“I’m sorry, Jamie, but this cat would require a lot of attention. As you said, it’s still very young. How could we leave it alone? We-”

Jamie thrust the kitten forward. The Doctor suddenly found himself staring right into a pair of bright green eyes.

The kitten may have been young, but he was not an idiot. He knew that this shabby looking man was his ticket to a home. He batted the Doctor’s nose with a paw and let out his cutest “ _mrow?_ ” which, in cat, meant “Daddy?”

The Doctor’s hearts finished melting into twin puddles of goo and he relented.

“Alright,” he sighed. “I suppose the TARDIS has room for another passenger. But I get to name him! That is, if he doesn’t already have a name.”

Jamie agreed, albeit reluctantly, and hugged the kitten closer to him. The Doctor wondered when Jamie would get tired of him and left to check on Zoe. He had only taken a few steps when he felt a furry presence rubbing his legs. The kitten had leapt out of Jamie’s hands to thank him. The Doctor smiled.

Maybe he would get used to the little guy.

***

he Doctor did more than get used to their new TARDIS teammate. After only a few days, the kitten felt like part of the family. He found out that the kitten was previously called Number 5 by his siblings, so he decided to call him Cosmo. He explained that he was inspired by the cosmos that they traveled through nearly every day. Really, he had gotten the name from a book from the Earth’s 1920’s, but Jamie and Cosmo were both happy with it. 

At first, Zoe seemed disapproving of Jamie’s wanting to keep Cosmo, but even she warmed up to the feline. Cosmo was surprisingly intelligent, which the Doctor explained was because he was bred with a certain type of cat from another planet, resulting in a higher IQ. He still had to do his business in a litter box, but nobody minded. Cosmo’s favorite thing to do was to curl up in the Doctor’s or Jamie’s lap in the library and doze off while they pet him.

After a week, Jamie decided that it wouldn’t hurt to bring Cosmo along when they went outside. It started with Jamie bringing Cosmo in his sporran, as before, but they soon trained Cosmo to ride on Jamie’s shoulder like a parrot. Cosmo loved seeing new places with his friends, and he was able to run quickly when trouble came. 

Jamie’s favorite moment with Cosmo happened when the cat was brought along to a meeting with a band of creatures that were threatening a peaceful, innocent planet. Cosmo had been stuffed into Jamie’s sporran at the first sign of trouble, so he at least didn't have to face the terrifying intruders. They were large hulking beasts, like purple centipedes with black stripes, and utterly terrifying.

“You need to leave this planet,” the Doctor insisted, not flinching at his opponent’s dripping fangs. “Your home world has all the resources you need. You’re just not using them efficiently!”

“Why does it matter to you,” the leader hissed, “whether we take the fruits of this planet or not?”

“It wouldn’t matter so much if your ripping up this planet hadn’t killed so many innocent people!”

“These people are weak, Doctor. It’s not our fault that they are prey. It’s the way the universe was built. We take what we can and grow.”

“Well, I think if you can’t feel kindness in any of your hearts, perhaps you shouldn’t grow at-”

A loud, snot-filled sneeze interrupted the Doctor.

“S-sorry,” snarled and sniffed the creature standing next to the leader.

The Doctor shuddered and proceeded to wipe almost the entire upper half of his body with a handkerchief.

“Hasn’t anybody ever told you to sneeze into at least one of your arms when you have to?”

“I, uh, I don’t know what’s-”

Another sneeze, this time from the leader herself, broke the conversation. Fortunately, she was carrying a tissue on her.

“Is something wrong?” Zoe asked, noticing that every creature in front of them had running noses and red, swollen eyes. “Is there a virus spreading on your ship?”

“Oh, I hope not!” said the Doctor, who had barely finished getting mucus out of his hair. 

“We’re perfectly healthy!” the leader barked. “We have no idea why-” She stifled a scream when Cosmo popped his head out of Jamie’s sporran.

An evil light shimmered in the Doctor’s eyes. “That’s right! Your people are extremely allergic to cat dander! Not enough for it be lethal, but certainly enough to be absolutely irritating.”

Jamie grinned as he put the kitten on the floor. “Sic ‘em, Cosmo!” 

Cosmo didn’t have to be told twice. He quickly strolled over to the intruders and rubbed against their slimy legs, joyfully causing red, rashy bumps to form. He made sure no leg was excluded from his cute torture. The intruders didn’t even try to attack Cosmo. They just jumped from foot to foot to foot in an entirely ungraceful manner, squealing at him as he did his work.

“I have a ship full of these not too far away,” the Doctor boomed, “and those ones breed like rabbits! If you even think about harming this planet, I’ll put them in all your ships and on your home world. Unless, for once, you could choose the easy way…”

“Fine! Fine! Just-” A frightened sneeze. “Just get it away!”

“A pleasure doing business with you,” the Doctor beamed, putting Cosmo on Jamie’s shoulder. “That’ll do, Cosmo, that'll do.”

As they walked away, the leader swore that the kitten turned around to stick its tongue out at them.

***

Unfortunately, Cosmo’s adventures with the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe ended far too soon.

Two months had passed since the feline’s first day onboard the TARDIS. He was watching the Doctor do repair work on the TARDIS console. Something had gotten jammed inside it, so the whole thing needed to be rewired. Cosmo had already been told to go away after chasing a few stray wires. He was about to follow the Doctor’s suggestion when the kitten spied a shiny, multi-faceted blue gem glittering not too far away. He decided that now was as good a time as ever to practice his pouncing.

When Jamie walked into the room, he spotted Cosmo batting the gem around. “Doctor, you got Cosmo a new toy?”

“What’s that, Jamie? Oh my word! That’s not a toy! Cosmo, leave that alone!” 

Cosmo didn’t want to leave it alone. The Doctor wouldn’t include him in what he was doing with the dangly wires, and now he wanted to take away the kitten’s only source of entertainment? Not without a fight. Cosmo quickly picked the crystal up, but it shattered between his teeth. Before he felt the shocking vibrations running through his tongue, a bright blue light enveloped him and with a flash and a hiss, he was gone.

Jamie stared at the spot where Cosmo had stood in confused shock.

“What the- Where’s Cosmo?”

The Doctor sighed and felt a twinge in his hearts. 

“I’m sorry, Jamie, but I left the power gem for the temporal forwarder unattended. It’s my fault.”

“What’s yer fault? What happened t’ him?”

“That stone was a crucial part of sending the TARDIS forward in time. It was seething with temporal energy when Cosmo crushed it. It was enough to send him into the future.”

Jamie saw the hopeless look on the Doctor’s face and was heartbroken. He knew he would never see Cosmo again. “How far in the future?”

“He’ll still be in the TARDIS when he comes back, but not for decades. Perhaps even centuries.” The Doctor couldn't even look at him. “You’ll be long gone by then.”

“Centuries?” Jamie was still incredibly mad at the Doctor, but he found a little hope. “But you won’t be long gone! Ye’re four hundred and fifty now, ye’ll live even longer than that!”

“Well, I hope so,” the Doctor admitted, but his chuckle was half-hearted. He hated being reminded of his friends’ mortality.

“Promise me that when he comes back, ye’ll take care of him.”

The Doctor looked into Jamie’s wide pleading eyes, which were as convincing as a kitten's, and smiled. 

“Of course I will, Jamie. I promise.”

***

_Twelve regenerations later…_

With a final zap of energy, Cosmo popped into another time. He shook the sparks from his eyes and looked around. He was shocked to find that this wasn’t his TARDIS, and yet it was. The whir of its inner circuits was still there, but the console room wasn’t blindingly bright. It was drenched in a solemn, mysterious darkness, and something on the ceiling was always rotating, written in a language the kitten couldn’t understand. He shivered when he realized that the scents of Jamie and Zoe were no longer there. Every trace of them was gone. He mewled pitifully, sounding just like he did the day Jamie first got him.

“Hello there, little one,” said a kind old voice behind him.

Cosmo yelped as he was picked up by an unexpected pair of hands. He twisted in the calm grip and looked at a new person dressed in light black. His hair was white and his eyes were ancient, but the Scottish burr in his voice was familiar and soothing to Cosmo. He sensed that the new man was friendly and laid his head against a vest-clad chest. Cosmo purred when he heart the beating of two hearts. 

“Welcome back,” the Doctor sighed.


End file.
